


Housed by Your Warmth

by HarpiaHarpyja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Auroras, Awkward Sexual Situations, Cold Weather, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Finland (Country), Fluff and Smut, Ice Hotel, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Minor Angst, Naked Cuddling, Natural Phenomena, One Night Stands, POV Ben Solo, POV Rey (Star Wars), Recovered Memories, Reincarnation, Sleeping Bag Sex, Snow and Ice, Some Humor, Soul Bond, Spooning, Talking Animals, Touching, Vaginal Fingering, Witches, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: Rey makes a somewhat snap decision to spend a long weekend in a trendy Finland ice hotel, where she hopes to fulfill her lifelong dream to see the northern lights. After a chance meeting in a bar and night after night of strange dreams, she begins to wonder if there might be something else at play entirely.





	Housed by Your Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reyofdarkness (mitslits)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitslits/gifts).



> reyofdarkness's winter exchange prompts were all tempting, and before I made much headway, I actually started two stories - one that became [The Smash Before the Splash](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16872756), and another that became this. While Smash ended up being a quicker and easier fic to write, I still really wanted to come back and finish this if I had time before the deadline. And I did!
> 
> The prompt was: "There a couple Ice Hotels, which are pretty much what they sound like i.e. hotels made completely out of ice. Somehow, Rey and Ben find themselves inside one of these establishments and naturally, as the temperature drops, things get hotter (this, in case you couldn't tell is The Smut One, if that's what you're feeling)" 
> 
> tl;dr: I wrote two fics? I wrote two fics. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one too, Winnie! <3 Thanks again for such fun inspiration.

—  
_I was housed by your warmth_  
_But I was transformed_  
_By your grounded and giving_  
_And darkening scorn_

_Remember me love, when I'm reborn  
As the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn_  
— 

Rey still wasn’t quite certain what had possessed her to spend at least a month’s worth of her typical earnings on a flight to Finland and three nights of lodging in an expensive, gimmicky ice hotel the week before the new year.

Maybe “gimmicky” was too judgmental on her part. Tulikettu Ice Hotel was nice. Really nice. 

Much nicer than any place she had ever stayed before, which was a given in light of her proclivity for youth hostels, or else the cheapest AirBnB available. Based on her observations so far, gleaned since she had arrived late that morning, Tulikettu was really more of a resort than a single-building hotel, laid out like a spoked wheel. At the center of the village was a heated reception building with a restaurant and lounge, and beside that, a recreational cabin with a sauna and other indulgent amenities that she was not sure she actually wanted to use. Situated in a ring around those were the guest lodgings—sixteen in all: eight cold rooms to the east perimeter, eight warm rooms to the west.

Rey had made the apparently daring choice to spend all three of her nights in one of the cold rooms, because she liked a challenge and perhaps had a slight masochistic streak. They were dome-shaped and, yes, made entirely of ice. Beautiful too; true works of art. Each was unique, newly built at the start of the tourist season. Every glimmering surface within—the bed included—was made of smooth, carved ice, and the air maintained at a shiver-inducing -5℃. Hers appeared to have been modeled on a castle theme. One wall sported intricately imagined turrets in relief, and there was a magnificent miniature horse-and-carriage sculpture doubling as an end table in the corner. It was like something out of a fairy tale, or that Disney movie everyone had been blabbering about a few years ago. She was positive she would remember her time here for the rest of her life.

And so in some ways, Tulikettu was even nicer than the place she lived (she would not mention that opinion to either of her flatmates). It felt artificial and unreal, like exactly the sort of thing to look for in a getaway. But it also wasn’t very practical at all. She had to stow her personal belongings in a locker in an adjacent heated dressing room; she would need to sleep in long underwear, and wool socks, and a hat, tucked inside a special sleeping bag atop reindeer furs and a foam pad; the bathroom, likewise, was in the dressing room, as was anything she might want to use when not sleeping. For someone who’d had lifelong troubles staying asleep through the night and was wont to crawl out of bed at odd hours to read or take a walk to ease her mind, this would be . . . interesting.

It was not lost on her that staying at an ice hotel was one of those things people who had money to throw around did to be able to say they had done it, or post about on their travel blogs or on their Instagrams. Rey was _not_ one of those people. And yet here she was, at the start of her first night. 

The early sunset had passed hours ago, and she was making her way from her room to the restaurant, keeping to the hard-packed paths carved into the snow. She was swaddled in a heavy parka, hat, gloves, and scarf, all layered over long thermal underwear, thick leggings, a smothering sweater, and heavy winter boots. She was thinking about how a Surrey girl like her had hardly any of those things just lying around. More money spent on the trip. Her one consolation was that, despite appearances, this had not been some snap decision brought on by overwork and the general stress of life after university. 

No. In many ways, this felt like a long time coming; though she could not have said why. While she had only learned ice hotels existed at all during a late-night session trawling through Scandinavian vacation ideas online, the one thing she had known was that she wanted to see the Northern Lights. She’d wanted that since she was six years old and had seen a picture of them in an encyclopedia at school. She’d torn the photo out and carried it with her every day after. Since that act of innocent vandalism, seeing them had come to feel like a need—persistent, instinctual, like her life had been and would remain incomplete until she saw the aurora borealis for herself, basked in its glow, watched its colors dance on the snow and her skin. 

She still had the pilfered photo. It had been folded and crushed and sat on so many times there were faded white marks creased permanently into the image where the ink had simply worn away. Right now, it was stuck between the pages of a dog-eared book buried in her backpack, which she’d left in her locker. She wondered if, after this trip was over, after seeing the real thing, the photo’s totemic appeal might wear away entirely. She hoped not.

But for now, after a full day of travel, settling in, and sightseeing, Rey was ready for dinner and a drink before she went out to see if the lights would deign to show themselves. The hotel restaurant was relatively empty despite the hour, so she took a seat at the bar, atop a chair upholstered with soft reindeer fur. A few minutes later she had placed an order for some hot parsnip soup, a basket of hearty bread, and an apple crumble for good measure—and, perhaps most important of all for ultimate relaxation, a perfectly chilled beer. She was halfway through the beer and just getting started on her soup when she noticed someone new enter the room.

With how cold it was outdoors—enough to make the -5 degrees of her room sound downright cozy—the person was just as covered up as she had been, so all she could immediately process was tallness. A black parka on stilts. Male parka, male stilts. He brushed right past her and sat at the other end of the bar.

Rey took another swig of her beer and glanced over at him. It was difficult to make out much of his features until he let his hood drop back and shifted his hat on his head. Under the warm glow of the lamps, she could see a long, pale face, sharp chin, sharp nose, sharp brow, sharp, sharp, sharp. His eyes, though . . . his eyes were large, and dark, and strangely soft. His mouth was soft too, and full-lipped, and so were the tufts of long black hair she could see peeking out from beneath his cap as he shook his parka off his shoulders. Broad shoulders. A moment later Rey realized she was staring and forced herself to look away before he noticed.

Too late. He looked up from his menu and caught her at it. To her mortification, he frowned as if confused. Or annoyed to find her gawking, more likely. Perhaps his eyes weren’t so soft as she’d first thought. They were sharp too, hard and probing. They reminded her of something she’d seen in a nature documentary; a wolf, or a fox, or a bird of prey.

A flush warmed her cheeks, and Rey studiously returned her attention to her meal—but only after she’d realized they were suddenly the only two people in the place. Still embarrassed, she refused to look at him directly for as long as it took her to finish eating, but it was difficult to keep up. She wanted to look at him; she felt positively compelled to. It was almost painful to ignore him, like he was a magnet and something in her was desperate to seek him out and stick. 

It was a miracle she could finish the apple crumble, delicious as it was, and there was no question about having a second drink. Rey needed to get back to her room, away from him, before she did what she really wanted to do and— 

What, exactly? Keep staring at him? Or worse, go talk to him? _Touch_ him? What was wrong with her? 

Rule number one for a woman traveling alone: don’t go trouncing up to strange, huge men and start eying them up for a shag. Or for anything. She had the bill applied to her room account and practically fled, not once looking back across the restaurant. There were no lights tonight. Not yet. It was disappointing, but she still had two nights after this to catch them, and many hours of darkness in which to find the opportunity.

❆

Her wings spasmed as she plummeted from midair, down and down, tumbling beak over tail, to be dashed against the powdery snow below. Despite the seeming violence of her fall, it caught her relatively gently, with a soft, crunchy _whuff_ and a puff of tiny glints of ice. But it embraced her so perfectly, she couldn’t move at first. Her wings were squashed too tightly to her body, her soot-colored feathers bent at odd angles, her beak filled with cold until she shook her head to empty her mouth and click a warning to her comrades still aloft.

 _Danger on the ground._

Above, the thick fiery bands of the aurora danced and throbbed, and more birds dove. All sorts, all sizes—the raptors, the passerines, the columbaves, her own brethren the corvids—joined in one cause.

It was a war, birds of the air against beasts of the ground. It had been going on far too long, almost as long as she had been alive, and she did not think there was any end in sight. She still fought, though. They all did. And today, she was beginning to think, might be her last. Perhaps it was for the best. If her brothers and sisters knew, if they knew what she’d done, who she’d consorted with: the sharp teeth; the sparking amber eyes; the blue-black, silver-tipped pelt . . .

The snatching jaws. Still unable to dig herself out and take to the air, she felt the hot puff of breath above her like a wind, and then the jaws, closing around her. She had no defense; she was only a grey jay. She did not have the talons of an owl or the hooked beak of an eagle. 

This was it. She had fought well. She had dashed out eyes, and dropped burning brush from the sky into dens and burrows, and feasted on tiny, warm-blooded young. 

But she was not dead. She was moving—being carried, in those jaws, the slavering tongue cradling her between curved fangs meant for tearing. 

She heard his voice, a voice she knew, and despite the throaty predator’s growl in the words, she understood. The voice of the fox, that skulking creature. Her skulking creature. _Don’t be afraid._

 _I am not_ , she told him, feeling her strength return slightly. Her wings were not broken in the fall. She was only stunned. She would be able to fly; if he let her go. She felt he would. Though she’d thought him a monster once, now she believed him almost a friend. _Where are you taking me, Creature?_

_Away from the fight, little Scavenger._

The fox was fast. He flew over the snow as easily as she did the air. When he stopped suddenly, she knew something was wrong. Still held in his jaws, she twisted her head to see what had blocked their way. There was another beast, a twisted, rangy wolf, its sparse coat the color of pale sickly smoke, its smell thick with age and death. Her fox had not expected this. He was afraid, and so was she.

 _We do not take prisoners_ , the smoke-furred wolf snapped. _You kill her, or I will—and I will not make it painless._

She could feel the fox’s fear, and his anger, and his teeth as his jaw began to tighten.

 _Please_ , she begged, flapping uselessly, hoping and trusting, her voice a quavering screech. _Don’t do this_.

 _I know what I have to do_. He was resigned. Or determined. His teeth continued to close around her—

❆

Ben had come to Finland for two reasons: to get away from the mundanity of the life he had ended up living, and to fulfill a long-guarded dream that had lurked at the corners of his mind for far too long. He only had three nights, and the first one had already passed with not even a glimmer of the aurora overhead.

He knew, because he’d stayed up late in hopes of catching it. And after he’d finally fallen asleep, fighting against his body to do so, he’d woken only an hour or so later, ejected from the depths of the strangest dream he’d had in a long time—which was saying something, for him. Ben had stayed up the rest of the night, trying to drive from his mind the afterimages of swooping gray birds and fox tails trailing sparks like comets. He’d guzzled coffee from a thermos to wash the inexplicable tang of blood from his tongue. The despair he felt was harder to quell, for all that he couldn’t even grasp its source.

At least there, in his dream, the northern lights had been vibrant and alive, as much as they were in the postcard image he’d carried with him since he was a kid. Since his need to see them for himself had rooted itself deep inside him and never quite died, not even all those years later.

With barely more than six hours of full daylight to work with, most of his day had been spent seeing the local sights, lurking around the small town nearest the hotel, trying not to look too insistently to the heavens as the sun began to disappear over the horizon. He was beginning to think the acuteness of his need to see the lights was precisely what kept them from making their appearance. If he flew back home in two days without even a hint of a sighting . . . he didn’t even want to think that was a possibility. It felt like it would be the end of something.

This place was making him superstitious, with its peculiar sense of old magic and his perhaps too-extensive knowledge of local lore. Natural phenomena did not hinge on the wishes of men and women, nor did they have any impact on one’s sense of destiny. He would just need to be patient, and hopeful. Neither thing came naturally to him, but perhaps there were intangible benefits to be reaped from this trip.

Tonight had proven unsuccessful so far—no lights, though he’d heard a thread of wolfsong carried in on the wind. He had come to the bar for a late dinner, after realizing how long he had been out, how cold his face had become, and how empty his stomach was. The fact was, Ben didn’t need to be outdoors to see the aurora, should it appear. The restaurant had large windows, and the roof of the dressing room beside his much colder sleeping quarters was glass. If he retired there after this, to lie back on the futon and stare up at the ceiling, he might yet catch them. He just didn’t like the idea that anything, even glass, should be between him and the lazy unfurling of the opalescent fire of the aurora overhead. He wanted to feel it and hear it.

Ben was thinking about this, and how ridiculous it was for a thirty-year-old man to have such peculiar fixations, when he heard someone slip past behind him. He looked over and saw the woman from last night making her way over to the other end of the bar. She was weird; that was the only impression he had formed of her. He’d caught her staring at him like she’d never seen another human being before. For some reason, that hadn’t just annoyed him. It had intrigued him. _She_ had captured his interest, at least, and he couldn’t say why. There was something familiar about her. He’d fought very hard against the urge to get up then, walk over to her, and ask if he could join her, just for the sake of figuring it out.

But out here, in a country where she was clearly as much a visitor as he (he’d heard her ask to have her meal billed to her room, and she’d had a rather charming English accent), there was no way his approach could be read as anything but predatory. So he had ignored her entirely instead, and she had ignored him, and that was that.

It was less easy to do that tonight. She was dressed the same as she had been the night before as she made her hasty departure—fur-lined parka in pale gray; a dark knit cap pulled down over her hair; the rest of her utterly hidden behind as many layers as he was, though she was already out of her parka and hat. Somehow he hadn’t really considered it the night before, but she was pretty, and she seemed young. Younger than him, anyway. 

Yet something about her eyes was clever, or creative, or knowing. Ben hated the term “old soul.” It smacked of insincerity and pretension, the sorts of people who spent most of their time in craft breweries or smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. It reminded him of the things he’d heard his father say about him, with his mother behind closed doors, always with an air of the eerie.

Looking at this woman, though, he sort of could see how a person might be just that; like whatever was behind her eyes had seen much and lived long.

Those same eyes were now holding his, staring right back, and he hadn’t even realized it at first. She appeared to sense the exact moment he noticed her, and this time she didn’t look away the way she had last night. She blinked coolly, then dipped her chin in such a slight nod he was surprised he caught it at all. What was that? Acknowledgment? Invitation?

Ben ignored the absurd flutter of excitement he felt in his gut, the sort that seeped gradually through his limbs and made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rise. He ignored it long enough to wait for his drink to arrive. Then he steeled himself (for what, he had no idea), took his glass in hand, rose from his seat, and made his way down the bar toward her. She saw him approaching and looked fleetingly alarmed— _shit, abort, abort_ —but then her alarm melted away to mere cautious interest, so he let his body carry him the rest of the way to her.

He sat at the empty seat beside her. Doing so felt somehow more momentous than the decision to make the trip at all, or than anything else he had ever done or accomplished in his life. Of course, that meant he now had to say something, and his tongue was suddenly a lead weight.

“You having a late night, too?” she asked. That accent he had noticed the night before was even more pleasing to his ear up close—or maybe just her voice alone was pleasing.

“So far,” he confirmed. He stole a sip of his beer and nodded. “I was told this was the best time of year to catch the northern lights, though so far the results have been underwhelming.”

She chuckled. “God, right? I’ve been waiting _years_ to see them, and so far”—her tongue darted out, pressed between her lips as she made a short _pbbt!_ sound of disapproval—“nothing.”

“That’s a pretty good summation of my feeling on it too.” Ben drummed his fingers a few times over the surface of the bar. Now that he was speaking with her, he was privately embarrassed by how cagey he had been before. She was actually remarkably easy to talk to, like an old friend he hadn’t seen in a few years. They were simply catching up at the easy, unhurried pace born of a trust that they had all the time they needed, and that neither of them was in a hurry to part. “You visiting from England?”

“Accent’s a giveaway, eh?” She was rolling her glass between her hands, smearing the condensation with her palms. Her gloves were sitting near her elbow; her fingers were a bit red from the cold, and he could just make out the calluses at the tips, her blunt nails, and the rough, drier skin at the sides of her pointers. “And you must be an American. Or Canadian? I’m actually horrible with telling the difference.”

“Bit of both, I guess. I grew up in D.C., but I’ve been living in Newfoundland for the last . . .” Christ, how long had it been? “Uh. Six, seven years?”

She nodded silently as her eyes wandered over the room. As had been the case the night before, they appeared to be the only two lodgers making use of the place at the hour. Sitting beside her made him feel as if the entire village must be empty aside from them. And the damned bartender, who Ben now couldn’t help viewing as an interloper on an important moment.

“Hey, listen, sorry if I was sort of staring last night,” the woman said. “At you. I usually mind my own business, but I think being here has sort of been messing with my head a bit. I had the strangest dreams last night.”

She muttered something to herself that sounded like _teeth_ and maybe _wings_.

He found that a little alarming, but just huffed a laugh into his glass. “Likewise.”

“I’ve only got a few nights, and seeing the aurora . . . this is going to sound so silly,” she continued, inexplicably divulging more of herself to him, like even the slightest indication of understanding on his part had dug up some wellspring in her. “But I saw this photo of it when I was a kid—like, really small—and since then it has literally been the one thing I’ve ever felt I _needed_ to do at some point in my life. Like there’s something missing until I do.” 

She laughed. She had a toothy, easy smile when she did, but there was something deeply sad buried within it that Ben didn’t think he would have caught if he didn’t feel it too. 

“I carry the bloody thing with me all the time,” she babbled. “And I keep thinking now that if I came all this way to see them, and I don’t see them . . . fuck. This trip cost me a lot, and I doubt I’ll have the chance again anytime soon, and I don’t want to go home and still have to feel that pull every time I try to fall asleep at night.”

Ben blinked wordlessly at her for a few seconds. She’d stopped speaking, and he could tell by the strained look on her face and the way she hadn’t looked away from her glass since she’d started telling him all she had that she was embarrassed. She thought she’d said too much, or gotten too personal. By most measures, she absolutely had. But every word she had just said hit him as if they were his own.

“And _that_ was oversharing,” she finished gamely after an uncomfortable pause. The timid ghost of her pretty smile flickered in her eyes. 

“It’s actually . . . You’re going to think I’m full of shit,” he said, “but I’ve always carried a photo of them around too. A postcard, actually. I forget how long, I think I was fourteen or fifteen or something.”

He began to dig into the pocket of his parka, which he was sitting on after he’d slung it over the barstool, then remembered the photo was actually tucked into one of his base layers—there was no way he would reach it right now.

She didn’t notice, and only looked disbelieving but amused, like they’d just found out they shared the same birthday. “Don’t tell me you’ve been completely obsessed with getting here to see them since then.”

Ben narrowed his eyes and made a high humming sound of reluctant admission. By now, he had come to think the drive had actually started before he had found the photo; that image had simply crystallized it.

“Well,” she muttered, and raised her glass to him, “here’s to us both, in that case. And to better luck tomorrow night.”

Ben would gladly drink to that, and with her.

❆

As he lay on his back in the snow, the sky was a riot of color. Spell fire and magic in the air; he could feel it dancing over his skin with the cold and the pain. The aurora looked like the instantaneous blossoming of a bruise, or the slick spread of an oil spill waiting to catch fire, mother-of-pearl writhing its way across perfect star-specked indigo.

He could see that much out of one eye. The other, if it was still there at all, was blind for now, the right side of his face too washed over in his own blood to be worth anything. She had ruined him with that curved cutlass, a witch’s weapon. The metal was smelted with spells. The wound would not heal well. His own sword carried spells of its own sort: the blood of her sister witches, running rivers down the blade and tacking the hilt, the pommel, the leather of his gloves. It gave him strength to see it there. 

It had, once. Now the feel of it only provoked guilt and misery, and knowledge that there was no coming back from this. It was too late. So maybe he deserved this end. His face and more sliced in two, brow to chest, and bleeding freely. His coats torn. His hands growing stiff from frost even in his gloves. If she didn’t kill him, she would leave him. The cold would take him eventually, because he would let it. Without her there was nothing else worth having.

She was speaking to him, spitting and angry. The witch. One of the finest warriors of her people, a queen in all but title. Her voice seemed to bear down from all sides.

“You didn’t have to go this way.” Her teeth flashed white as she seethed, and she swung her cutlass in a menacing arc, though he was felled and posed no threat to her. Her robes billowed in the wind—moon gray, embroidered over in deep-blue silk threads, runes and sigils, the cloth no doubt as soft and warm as it had been every time he’d slipped it from her shoulders when they met in the valleys. Soft and warm as she was . . . no longer. She was all hard lines, sharp angles, cold eyes. If she had loved him, he saw none of it now.

 _Never suffer a witch to live_. The first rule, and the most important one. The one he lived by. The one that got him paid. The one he broke, for her, again and again. Until tonight. Orders were orders.

There were tears in her eyes, and though she snarled her lips were trembling. “I trusted you!”

“That was your first mistake.” It hurt him to say that, but it was true. Her mistake, and his. They’d both made so many. At least he wouldn’t need to live with his own much longer.

Her hand twitched, wrapped around the cutlass hilt, and he thought she might drop it. For a moment he even thought it was possible she might forgive him and give him a chance to do the same to her. They could leave, together. Go . . . somewhere. But her resolve returned and her hand tightened so much her knuckles must have been white beneath her kidskin gloves. 

Her mouth was moving, and it sounded as if she was saying how sorry she was through clenched teeth as the wind curled around them both and stole the sound of her words away. She advanced, sword held in both hands and raised high above her head, ready to end it with a single strike. They had nothing left to say to each other. This was how it always should have been.

“I’m so sorry,” he managed, even as the blade descended. “I’m—”

❆

Had they exchanged names at all? Rey was positive they had. She _knew_ the name of that guy at the bar—except she totally didn’t, or she wouldn't be thinking if him as “that guy at the bar.” It seemed bizarre that she should have spent over two hours talking to him the night before, stealing occasional looks to the windows in hopes of catching the lights, and not once asked his name or given him hers. They must have, though, because that was the sort of thing you did with someone you’ve just met, even if it felt like you’d known them for ages.

It was something ordinary. Short, fairly common. One syllable. Two at the most. It was on the tip of her tongue, she swore.

Paul? Matt? Philip?

And then she really swore, muttering to herself as she paced in her room as she pulled her parka on over her flannel shirt. “Fuck, what the hell was it?” Getting dressed out here really was a right pain in the ass. Her sleeve was proving as cooperative as her memory.

She was hoping to see him again tonight. Her final night; his too. They’d agreed to do so before they'd parted ways in the restaurant, but she wasn’t entirely positive he would follow through. He had left in a state of mild embarrassment, despite her insistence that she wasn’t reading anything into the fact that, as he’d opened his wallet to pay their tab, a handful of kronor coins and what looked like an old poker chip stamped with a pair of golden dice had tumbled out—along with a condom. A joke a colleague had played on him, he’d insisted, because who the hell came to a place like this expecting to get laid? He’d refused to meet her eyes, like she would think he was trying to hint that they go to bed together. (Though she might not have minded that, practical problems aside; he was attractive, and she felt like there was something between them, even if it just ended up being a couple nights together or a tryst in the sauna.) She’d tried to lighten to mood by joking that with how cold the rooms were, he’d be lucky if he could get it up at all let alone perform. 

Shock of shocks, that only seemed to make things worse. 

While she suspected that moment had probably haunted him long after they went their separate ways, she was more apt to replay the hours of conversation that had preceded the mild faux pas, and thought fondly of how eager they had both been to share themselves with the other. She had never been that forthcoming with anyone, but now they practically knew each other’s life stories. 

_I don’t really remember my parents. I’m pretty sure my uncle always resented being saddled with a little girl he’d only ever seen the once as an infant . . ._

_My dad wasn’t around much. Sort of a gambler, didn’t like to stay in one place . . ._

_I used to have the most bizarre dreams. And I’d make things out of clay or paper or whatever I had, to try to make sense of them after. The kids at primary thought I was a complete loony . . ._

_God, I could hardly ever sleep well. Nightmares, mostly, or else sleepwalking. I grew out of the last eventually, but I still sometimes have a hard time with how real it all feels even after I wake up . . ._

_I do metalwork now; mostly scrap. I’ve never told anyone this, but I still get all my inspiration from what I dream. I guess . . . I never got over using art to cope with things? It’s a way to order stuff. Look, here’s some of the pieces I’ve got up on my website. Fingers crossed, I’ll have a gallery show soon enough . . ._

_I’m a lecturer. Back in St. John’s, at one of the universities. Folklore studies. Was sort of a family interest; I never knew what else to do with myself and my mom has some renown in the field. It was familiar . . ._

There were the funny coincidences, too. The photos they carried of the northern lights—symptomatic of that same fixation she’d been sure no one else could possibly grasp, let alone share. The fact that they’d both been on the same flight from Heathrow after his layover. That they were supposed to be on the same one back tomorrow afternoon. She could have talked to him until sunrise, even if it didn’t come until nearly nine-thirty in the morning.

But they’d said their goodnights by midnight, and she’d gone back to her room. She’d stripped down to her thermals and socks and slid into her sleeping bag, quivering until her body filled the space with heat. And the dark was so perfect. And the silence was so complete. It should have been peaceful; but all it made her feel was alone. The double bed she had ended up with by mistake, a seeming perk on the first night, only deepened the sense of something missing.

She had dreamt terrible things, sad things—she was fierce and angry, powerful, vengeful, and she thought she may have killed a man bleeding in the snow and telling her how sorry he was. She had been sorry too. His face was familiar, even mutilated as it was, but when she woke to sip her cup of hot lignonberry juice, she could not remember anything but the sorrow. She thought her next project might be a sword, long and curved.

When she saw him there at the bar—the guy, that guy at the bar, whatever his bloody name was—her heart practically leapt. It was silly, she supposed, to get so excited over seeing him when something as basic as his name had already escaped her, but it was the same feeling she got when she found something she’d thought she lost months after the fact. 

“Ben!” she called with a wave. 

That was it. Rolled right off her tongue, without her even thinking it, like all she’d needed to do was lay eyes on him again. Ordinary, common, one syllable. She had been right. 

He was sitting at the bar, facing the door she had just entered through. _Watching_ the door. He’d been waiting for her, she was certain. She was so relieved, her heart did that galloping thing again, and she sped her stride to reach him. “Hey,” she said. “Can I—”

She’d been about to offer to buy him a drink, but he slid a bottle of the beer she’d had a few rounds of last night toward her and nodded at the seat beside him as she began the task of shedding her coat. 

“I was hoping you’d show up.” He cast a look over the room behind her. As always seemed to be the case, against all odds, they were alone again. He gestured at the bottle. “This okay? Thought it might be your drink of choice.”

She grinned as she nodded and whipped her hat off. “Yeah, it’s great, thanks. That’s . . . very thoughtful.”

In the lighting of the bar she thought Ben might have flushed slightly, but it was difficult to say, especially when he swiveled on his stool the next moment and leaned back against the bar, elbows planted at the edge, to observe the long window that looked out onto the snow-blanketed village. 

“It’s just a drink.” He dipped his chin a bit and looked at her askance. “Though I’m thinking I might switch over to coffee after this. If we still want to try to time this right.”

The plan they had discussed last night was to meet in the bar for drinks roughly an hour before magnetic midnight, which was when the magnetic pole would be directly between the sun and, well, them. It wasn’t truly midnight, but fairly close by an hour or so, so they would head out around then and wait. And hope for success tonight, because it was all they had. Rey supposed now that if the worst happened and the aurora didn’t make an appearance, at least she could say she had met Ben. For some reason it felt almost as good as getting what she’d come for in the first place. 

She was going to miss him. She could not tell him that; he had been very receptive to her overtures of good will, and she to his, but she had the feeling that something like that might be taking it a bit far. If he had been interested in her in that way, surely the time to say so would have been last night, when the opportunity fell out of his wallet and onto the bar. He hadn’t. They’d just met. She had no right to miss him or presume he might also feel that same level of improbable attachment.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind?” he prompted. He was silent a few moments, then leaned closer to try to get a look at her face. “Um. Rey?”

Shit. She’d been sitting there staring off into space and getting lost in her head. Rey jolted and grabbed her beer, then took too long a pull and nearly had to choke it down. 

“No, I still want to,” she managed after, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, then realizing she’d forgotten to take her gloves off. “This is it, right? Our last chance.” 

He just nodded, and they settled in to enjoy their drinks a while and chat about the mundane matters of preparing for travel—packing, squeezing in last minute activities. Rey had gone reindeer-sledding that morning; Ben had spent most of the day, surprisingly, at the sauna. They were both expecting a fairly early morning of getting things set and making sure everything was in order for the flight home. By the time they were finished with the alcohol and had moved on the coffee, the time was getting near to head outside, so they settled up the bill (with no personal items falling out of anyone’s wallet this time), donned their outerwear, and took the party outdoors.

She’d have thought by now, three nights into her stay, the sight of the perfect, flat expanse of white of the hotel grounds would have stopped taking her breath away every time she stepped outside. That the sound of snow and ice crunching so softly underfoot would have stopped sending tingles of delight up her arms and legs. That the wind snipping at her nose and chapping her lips as it sought any other opening in her clothing to slip through would have stopped making her feel as if something was trying to find her. But she felt all of it as if for the first time, _every_ time, and tonight she could sense, somehow, that Ben felt it too.

They were silent as they put some distance between themselves and the building. In the distance they could see a small group of some fellow guests, loitering around and hurling snowballs at one another, the sounds of their hoots and laughter carrying in the thin air. They were probably waiting too, but Rey didn’t understand how they could just muck about like that as they did so. She only had eyes for the sky, though her potent awareness of Ben at her side was a new distraction. Luckily, he seemed just as disinterested as she was in anything that wasn’t strictly overhead.

It began like a ripple after they'd been standing there nearly twenty minutes; sudden and brief as lightning, and she almost thought she must have imagined it. She knew, though, she felt it—at the eleventh hour, it was the lights at last. There was another hesitant wave, a wing of illumination unfurling slowly, yellow-green and blue so pale it was almost white, like a vein peeking through cold skin. Rey gasped as it grew brighter, the flares of it beginning to throb and shudder as they spread and swallowed the stars. Splotches of red bloomed, fuchsia and yellow too. It was the grandest thing she had ever seen, completely dizzying, utterly overwhelming. The tears threatening to leak from her eyes froze before they made it very far down her face.

But that feeling wasn’t going, the one she’d thought would finally dispel when she saw the aurora. The weird desire and longing and sense of incompletion; it was still there. The knowledge that she had fulfilled a lifelong ambition felt hollow and made the wanting worse than ever. She could stand out here all night and watch, and it wouldn’t make a difference. It was beautiful. She was fortunate to see it. And she still felt empty. She thought this was what she had wanted. 

Desperate to feel something, she slipped the glove on her left hand off. The cold immediately attacked her fingers, but she didn’t care. It was a good hurt. Rey raised her hand in front of her, palm up, and watched the way the light moved over her skin, her wrist trembling.

Was that all? She closed her hand in a fist, fingers already stiff and protesting, and knuckled more frozen tears from her cheeks. It was only when she felt something bump her shoulder that she remembered Ben was there too. She sniffled painfully and tried to paw her balaclava higher up her face. She didn’t want him to see her like this. She was being ridiculous.

But when she looked at him, she saw the same crestfallen expression in his eyes, his lashes stuck with a glimmer that could have been snow or ice. One of his hands was bare, dimly aglow in the shifting lights and tucked lamely against his chest like it had sustained an injury. And he said it, sure as she was thinking it, his voice muffled but clear enough—“Something is wrong.”

Rey receded into the shadow of her hood as another tear struggled down her cheek. Something was not right, and she had no idea what it was beyond the consuming disappointment she felt. On impulse, she reached for his hand, frigid like hers, his palms smooth as stone. The pads of her fingers brushed his, and as his own fingers curled around hers . . .

She was spinning out of herself. Out of her body, out of time. The cold was gone. Everything was gone, except for him. He was there now, and he had always been there. Time and time and time again, for years, decades, centuries, millennia. Each lifetime came in a flash of the lights above, an impression that flared and solidified like something always there inside of her—binary stars in orbit; a puff of gray feathers blown in the wind; a smile shared in a hospital lobby; a lovers’ tryst in a mossy valley; a classroom, after school, detention; a clash of swords, metal so bright they seemed to be made of light; a door slamming on a rain-soaked doorstep; hands entwined, one shaking, the other cold and motionless. Things she had dreamed, and things she never had. 

They came by the dozens, never the same in any way but one. They filled her mind and her heart like sand in a glass until it was no longer disappointment that brought the tears to her eyes, but relief. Joy. Regret. Horror. Loneliness. Love. Understanding. So many lifetimes. So few in which they had found a way to be happy. It had so rarely ended well.

It felt as if only an instant had passed when she came back to herself. The cold was too much, everything in her head was too much—how had she gotten on her knees? 

Rey gasped and looked around, frantic and panicked in the snow as the cold began to seep through the legs of her snow pants. Her bare hand was still tucked in Ben’s; she could hardly feel it beyond the bright pain of skin too long exposed to the elements. He was in the snow too, his eyes glazed and fixed on the sky. She didn’t want to let go of him, but she wrenched her hand from his anyway, and it was only then that he looked at her again.

“Rey? I’m— I—” His voice was breaking, and though his eyes looked still unfocused she felt as if he was truly seeing her for the first time, just as she was him. “Is it you? It is you . . .” 

He collapsed toward her and wrapped his arms around her, and hers were already open to catch him. Rey pressed her face into the ruff of his coat and let out a sob. She wasn’t sad. She wasn’t even crying. She was just so— 

“I missed you,” she murmured, then said, louder, “I miss you. Every time. I think I—” God, she felt so sure of this, more sure than she had ever been of anything. “That I—”

“It’s always you.” His arms tightened and she shuffled closer. They probably looked a sight, huddled in the snow, but she didn’t care. If he was here it was exactly where she needed to be. “Right? What— what the fuck?”

She managed to pull back, and they got to their feet and drew together again, standing. She thought perhaps they should go inside. “Did you see all that?”

His head bobbed once beside hers.

“Then you know— You know what I’m feeling?” she asked. “Like . . . like my—”

“Like my soul is at home with yours.”

Hearing it pared down to that made her throat clench. It was impossible and absurd, but he was right. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. For all those times we—”

“Yeah. I know. Me too.” She sniffled and looked up at him. Yes, she knew him, really knew him; how had she not realized it nights ago? She’d known him for years, in every half-remembered dream of a life long past. “Ben . . . we’ve . . . I think we must have fucked this up more times than we’ve gotten it right. We— We hurt each other.”

His eyes flickered. “Don’t you think we have a choice in that?”

She had no idea. If she could choose any of the lives in which their paths had tangled, she would pick out those few bright ones and discard all the rest. She didn’t think she loved him. This binding was something different and deeper. But she knew what it felt like to have loved him, and she thought she might be starting to again. They would say goodbye tomorrow. The reality of it pained her more than ever. 

They’d both put their gloves back on, but she grabbed his hand and could swear she felt his pulse racing. Before she could think to stop herself, she blurted, “Stay with me tonight.”

“Stay . . .?”

If he wasn’t sure what she was inviting him to do, she wasn’t going to be more explicit until they got somewhere warm. The lights were still wavering overhead, but the cold was getting to her. “Yeah. Stay. This time, at least. If you want to.” 

Maybe he didn’t. Maybe this scared him. It scared her too, but not as much as the idea of not making the most of her time with him. He was right: they did have a choice. She chose him, tonight, even if that was all. His hand wound more tightly through hers, and they made their way back to the rooms, their path shining blue from the lights that danced above.

❆

She had told him to bring his wallet when they dropped their things off in the dressing room and prepared to head to her bedroom. In any other situation, Ben would have considered that an unsubtle attempt to rob him while he slept—except the kronor he still had on him amounted to basically nothing, his credit cards would be easy enough to cancel, and there was no way she was interested in the poker chip his dad had given him almost twenty years ago. There was only one thing inside his wallet that could possibly be of any interest to her.

He was watching her now. They stood at the foot of her bed. It was a double, right down to the sleeping bag, like somehow she—or some irksome force of destiny—had known, though she said it had been a hotel mixup. Their heavy coats were hanging, along with all their other outdoor things, boots abandoned by the thick curtain that served as a door. Everything was cast in the same cool hue, including Rey as she shed her snowpants and flannel shirt, then looked at him expectantly for a moment before she peeled her long-sleeved thermal top away as well, holding his gaze the whole time.

“Shit, it’s . . . fucking freezing, hurry up and get naked,” she said, laughing and shivering in her bra and thermal leggings, hopping from foot to foot and scrubbing her hands up and down her arms.

Ben chuckled, a cloud of breath condensing in his face. “Trying.”

“They say it’s warmer in there the less clothing you’ve got on anyway.”

“How pragmatic.”

While he undressed he tried not to stare at her as she tugged her thermals down her legs, paused like she was uncertain, then shed her bra and panties as well. But he couldn’t help it, he had to stare, just a little, as Rey danced in place for a few seconds before darting toward the refuge of the sleeping bag. Graceful neck; small, pretty breasts; narrow waist; a faint thatch of dark hair between her thighs; a perfectly rounded ass. She was very lean, sharp knees and elbows, though her arms and legs looked strong, and somehow the curve of her back as she pulled the bag open and slipped inside was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. _She_ was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

He left his clothing in a pile with hers and felt as if he couldn’t get to the bed fast enough, aware the whole time of her eyes on him. He slid into the sleeping bag, zipped it in a hurry, and spooned up beside her as she reached up to turn the light out. When she tucked her arm back into the bag, he realized how snug the space was, even made for two people. Not uncomfortable, though. Not with the press of her naked skin to his own. They were both still shivering, but already their shared heat was alleviating the unforgiving cold of just a few moments before. He rested a hand on her forearm and felt the goosebumps fading, then decided they weren’t warming quickly enough and wrapped an arm around her to pull her against his chest. In the near-perfect dark he detected movement as she lifted her chin. Her nose brushed his.

It felt like nothing else existed. The room was almost completely absent of light, and the ice blocked out any sound that might have come in from outside. Touching her, even just an arm looped over her, was the most wonderful thing he had felt in a long time. Maybe ever. He counted three breaths from her—it was all he could hear, and the heat from her parted lips warmed his chin—and thought he might be holding his own. He had forgotten how to breathe. 

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” he asked.

She shook her head and snickered. “Slept naked with a stranger in the middle of a tundra? No.”

“Are we strangers?”

“No, not really. Not at all.” The back of her knuckles traced over his cheekbone. “I’m so happy you’re here. I don’t understand this, but it feels very . . . right. You know?”

“It’s okay. If we don’t understand it all. I think this is enough.”

“I think so too.”

He curled his toes at the bottom of the bag as feeling began to return to them properly. “I knew there was something about you that first night.”

“You scowled at me!” she protested, though he could hear the smile in her voice. 

“That’s just how my face looks.” He followed the curve of her lower lip with his thumb, drew a finger along the bridge of her nose, the soft line of her eyebrows, felt her closed eyelid tremble as he touched that too. 

“It is not.” Rey laughed again, then puffed another sigh against his neck. Her palms pressed to his chest, rubbing slowly up and down in little exploratory touches that warmed him through. “But you’re right. I felt that way too. I couldn’t look away, once I’d noticed you. It wasn’t even just physical, it was . . . I don’t know. I was drawn.”

She shuffled a little again, scooting deeper down inside. Her thigh nudged passingly against his dick—he’d been reasonably convinced as he undressed that regardless of intentions, not much would be happening between them that couldn’t be accomplished with hands and mouths alone, but he felt his blood beginning to rush at the mere suggestion of her touch there, and a mounting tension low in his belly . . . evidently he hadn’t had anything to worry about. He considered apologizing, because despite appearances she hadn’t asked for him to go prodding her with his nascent boner, but she gave a quiet, amused “Oh!” and settled back with her hand at his waist.

“Can I kiss you?”

They both asked it at the same time. Rey huffed with nervous laughter, a sound as warm as the sliver of empty air between their bodies. She rested her thigh against his, careful this time to avoid unintended touches to sensitive spots, and said in a low voice, “I guess we have our answer.”

Her lips were chapped from days of cold air, but so warm and open to his own he barely registered it. She tasted a bit like beeswax when her tongue slipped inside his mouth. In the best lives, this must have been how it was with her. Enjoying being together without reservation, just a persistent, bone-deep contentment and a sense of rightness, like something had aligned and unlocked. 

Emboldened by that certainty, and by the way her skin heated to his attentions as the kiss deepened, he cupped her soft breast and felt the peak of her nipple pressing back. Maybe he should have asked first, but she gave a shaky sigh and pushed herself harder into his palm to increase the friction. Head tipped back to let him kiss her throat, she tangled a leg with his, and the next thing he knew she was reaching down between their bodies, the back of her wrist brushing him as she slipped her fingers between her legs. In the still and quiet, the shallow moan that escaped her lips buzzed over his ear and filled the room. 

She ground against herself, and soon he could hear the wet sound of her hand at work between her thighs. Each needy hitch of her hips teased his cock again and again until he had to do something else because this just wasn’t working. He clipped her throat with his teeth and pawed at her ass, dragging her even closer to rub himself against the inside of her thigh, groaning with relief as he stiffened further at the contact. She gasped and stopped touching herself long enough for him to feel her hand glance along his shaft, then up his abdomen, trailing traces of herself behind.

“Let me,” he said, mouth pressed to her neck.

He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her, and he could feel her. He could hear the want in the way she whimpered when his fingers parted her and slid over the sensitive spots inside, his thumb caressing the swollen bud of her clit, another finger circling her entrance, then slowly sinking deeper. He could feel her thigh flex, and the smooth skin of her neck bob against his tongue when she swallowed, and the way her hand trembled as it traveled lower and grasped him— 

He drew in a sharp breath and exhaled it against her shoulder. They were both already damp with sweat, and he was dimly aware that to get out of the sleeping bag now would be even more uncomfortable than it had been when neither of them was half drenched. Her hand tripped lightly down his cock, then again with more confidence, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to drive himself deeper into her touch, to let her take her time and finish him off after he did the same for her, or pull away as much as the snug space would allow. If he came all over the fucking sleeping bag—all over _her_ —he was going to remember this trip and this bizarre, fated night for all the wrong reasons.

“Wait,” he managed, even as he let his fingers curl further into her until she swore. She pressed her mouth to his collarbone and sucked, coaxing him between her legs, as if there was any room with his arm and hand in the way. “Wait, waitwait— shit—” He moved his hand to grasp her wrist and caught her mouth with his to kiss her until she slowed down.

“What? Sorry, should I not do that?” she asked, releasing him at last and running her hand over his cheek and through his hair instead. Her face was close; he could feel the warmth radiating from it. 

“No. I love the way it feels when you do that, it’s just . . .” He lifted his head and fumbled under the pillow until he felt the little square of the condom wrapper. God, if Phasma only knew her joke had actually come in handy . . . he didn’t think he’d be detailing this particular part of his trip to her. “You’re so beautiful like this. And I want to know what it feels like to have you around me. When you come. When I—”

“Me too.”

Getting the thing on in the near-pitch dark with barely enough space to move back from Rey proved mildly challenging and worth a few laughs from them both, but then it was done, and she crushed her mouth to his one last time before rolling over, her back to his chest, to help guide him inside. He pushed into her slowly; she was hot and slippery, but very tight, and he didn’t want to hurt her. Arms circled around her, he focused on the way her muscles relaxed and loosened as she took him deeper, and how he swore he could feel her heart hammering through her back and into his chest. His hand was at her breast again, one of hers clasped over it, her fingers stretched between his; the other was at her hip, stroking her, holding her fast. For a few moments they just laid there, joined and unmoving, their breaths matched and uneven.

They made do with the space and measured movements. Each kiss was an apology for every time it had gone wrong. Each touch was an affirmation that this was how it could have been. When he curled around her, he imagined himself like a shield, something to make her loved and safe, a home. The heat felt impossible, like they were in their own little cocoon of it, shared body warmth and the heady smell of their being together and the quiet clap of skin against skin. He could almost forget where they were. But the frigid air managed to slip in every so often to remind them: there was a world outside, and all that kept them from it was a few feet of ice and a heavy curtain. The possibility that someone might somehow hear them was titillating, if unlikely, and he drove harder into her, forehead sunk against her shoulder blades.

“God, Ben, that’s . . .” She panted out another swear, laughed at herself, and ground back onto him as she reached a hand over her shoulder to tug at his hair. “Don’t you dare stop doing that, I’m close and—” Her breath caught again and he felt a faint tightening of her around himself as her back arched away until he was half out of her. She sank back onto him with a rapid jerk and ground her ass more insistently into his hips. “ _Harder_.”

“Come on, sweetheart”—he grinned over her skin and pinched her nipple out of pique, ignoring the surge of pressure low in his groin—“any harder and we’re going to slide off this thing.”

“Sweetheart? So familiar.” She chuckled wickedly and grasped his hand, then drew it down to press his palm where her thighs were a wet mess of her arousal. “Touch me again.”

He did as she asked until his hand was soaked with her and she was tensed and squirming, until she writhed against his fingers with some newfound finality and he felt her clench again and close around him in tight pulses as she reached her climax at last. The high, thin sound she made sounded like permission, and he could have come but he kept going anyway, unwilling to part with her so soon. He gripped her hips harder, hard enough to make her stay, hard enough to leave behind a mark, he was sure, until she dug her nails into the back of his hand and he came in a swift peak of pleasure as she began to still. He gladly could have stayed like that for far longer, as physically close as it was possible to be.

But in the real world, where they very much resided even now, he had the awkward business of pulling out of her and disposing of the condom in a room with no trash can—in the end it wound up tied off and on the floor, and he felt like a teenager who had just fucked in the woods, and it was only after Rey cracked a joke about him turning her hotel room into a sperm bank that he laughed and decided it didn’t much matter. Better than all the alternatives.

There was nothing to do afterward but stay. They might get some displeased looks in the morning when the hotel attendant stopped by with Rey’s morning cup of juice and found her with an additional guest for the night, but for the time being he didn’t care. She didn’t either. It wasn’t as if either of them would be back. If he got banned from the ice hotel, he considered the reasons well worth it.

She was facing him again as they settled in with the intent to drift off to sleep, and for the first time he felt happy about the prospect of it. Her forehead was pressed to his, and though their limbs were heavy she pressed a few idle kisses to his face or neck, and he was content to let his fingers drift over her back to memorize the faint ridges of bone and muscle and the imperfections of her skin. Neither of them knew what would happen tomorrow when they parted ways at Heathrow; he wasn’t worried about it. It seemed taken care of, and while he wasn’t the sort to take anything for granted, for now he was willing to indulge the fantasy.

“Do you think we’ll still dream of each other tonight?” he murmured as her breathing began to quiet and slow. If they had found one another, maybe it no longer mattered, that thing that had always tried to nudge him toward her. 

“Don’t know.” Her voice was thick, and he could tell her eyes were closed. She sniffled and pecked her lips to his. “If you do, I hope it’s one of the good ones.”

He thought it couldn’t possibly be anything else. The walls of ice creaked around them, and how he wished the moment could be frozen within. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this (and that blurb at the start) are lyrics from ~~Ho-Ho-~~ Hozier's recent song 'Shrike', which I heard by chance and realized more or less perfectly summed up this fic as I was percolating it. Thanks for being such a strange woodland cryptid, Hozier.


End file.
